The disclosures herein related generally to surgical instruments and more particularly to an avascular neucrosis instrument and a method of providing a regenerated blood supply to a femoral head.
Osteonecrosis of the femoral head is a progressive disease which involves a disruption of the blood supply causing a portion of the femoral head to die. One surgical approach to treating this disease is core decompression. This involves boring a canal which extends toward the femoral head, filling the bore with bone graft material, and regenerating blood supply to the femoral head via the canal. Various techniques have been used to regenerate blood supply to the femoral head to buy time before a total hip replacement is necessary. These techniques include vascularized and non-vascularized structural bone grafts inserted into the canal, and electric stimulation and osteoinductive grafts which modify the repair response. Decalcified bone matrix (DBM), tamped into the canal, has been shown to be osteoinductive. Other materials may also be suitable.
An important consideration is the effective distribution of the blood supply to the femoral head. The forming of a single canal is helpful but concentrates the regenerated blood supply to a single area or zone at the tip of the canal. This limits exposure of the blood supply to the area immediate adjacent the bore.
Therefore, what is needed is a more effective method of distribution of the blood supply to the femoral head, and a tool for providing an adequate but less concentrated distribution of the blood.